rs. Macy's story an' it begun when she
went in town yesterday mornin', an' it's a story of her trials, an' I
will say this for Mrs. Macy, as more trials right along one after
another I never hear of an' to see her sittin' there now in her carpet
slippers with a capsicum plaster to her back an' Gran'ma Mullins makin'
her tea every minute she ain't makin' her toast is enough to make any
one as is as soft an' tender-hearted as I am take any duck whether it's
spoiled or not. An' so I took this duck."

"Well, I--" exclaimed Mrs. Lathrop.

"You think not now," said Susan, "but you soon will when I tell you, for
as I said before, I come over just to tell you, an' I'm goin' to begin
right off. It's a long story an' one as 'll take time to tell, but you
know me an' you know as I always take time to tell you everythin' so you
can rely on gettin' the whole hide an' hair of this; an' you'll get it
fresh from the spout too, for I'm just fresh from Mrs. Macy an' Mrs.
Macy's so fresh from her trials that they was still holdin' the plaster
on to her when I left."

"But--" expostulated the listener.

"Well, now this is how it was," said Miss Clegg; "an' I'll begin 'way
back in the beginnin' so you 'll have it all straight, for it's very
needful to have it straight so as to understand just why she is so nigh
to half mad. For Mrs. Macy is n't one as gets mad easy, an' so it's well
for us as has got to live in the same town with her to well an' clearly
learn just how much it takes to use her up.

"Seems, Mrs. Lathrop, as yesterday mornin' Mrs. Macy set out to go to
town to buy her some shoes. Seems as she was goin' to take lunch with
Busby Bell's cousin Luther Stott's wife as she met at the Lupeys' in
Meadville, 'cause they only live three-quarters of an hour from town on
two changes of the electric, an' Mrs. Stott told Mrs. Lupey as any time
she or her relations got tired of shoppin' she'd be nothin' but happy
to have 'em drop in on her to rest 'cause she kept a girl an' her
husband's sister, too, so company was n't no work for her herself. Well,
Mrs. Macy was goin' to the city an' so she looked up the address an'
made up her mind to go there to lunch, an' so she wrote the address on
one side of the piece of paper as she had in her black bag an' she wrote
her shoes on the other side, for she says they're a new kind of shoes as
is warranted not to pinch you in the back, by every magazine an'
newspaper--an' _you_ know what Mrs. Macy is